Get Back on Track: Manage Your Time and Priorities with Karyn Greenstreet

In this week’s episode of The CEO Warrior Podcast, Mike Agugliaro interviews Karyn Greenstreet, who is an internationally known self-employment expert and small business consultant. Karyn has owned six businesses since 1981 and has spoken at numerous national conferences on business strategy and marketing topics. She has taught more than 270,000 people worldwide, is the president of Passion For Business, and operates four websites. During the show Mike and Karyn discuss time and calendar management, prioritizing, and procrastination.

Main Questions Asked:

What is time management?

How does somebody prioritize?

How do I strategically think through the process?

What can you share about calendar management?

Why do people procrastinate?

What are your thoughts on delegation?

What can business owners do to get their time back?

Key Lessons Learned:

Time Management

If you don’t master time management, it will master you.

The feeling of being overwhelmed is rampant among small business owners, and people tend to think it is a matter of time versus money.

Time management is about getting stuff done and checking things off the do list in whatever way you can.

Time management isn’t just about scheduling your calendar, it’s about big picture thinking and about the strategy of your business and big picture goals.

A way to find out where you are spending your time is to do a time study on yourself over a three-day period and make note of your activities every 15 minutes.

It’s impossible to multi-task, there is only multi-switching from one activity to another.

Pay attention to your biorhythms so you can refuel yourself for maximum working output.

Prioritizing

Prioritize based on goals and values.

Think big picture goals and figure out your vision, what you are trying to accomplish, and your values.

Values are ‘must haves’ and things that must be true in your life otherwise you don’t feel right.

Look at your to-do list and prioritize based on your goals and what is most important.

If you are constantly distracted, you are switching focus, nothing will get complete, and you will feel overwhelmed.

The fault of distraction is not the to-do list but rather the chasing after shiny objects.

When creating priorities consider financials. How you want your business to make you feel? What you want your business to do for you, your family, and employees? How much notoriety and success you want?

Mike suggests finding an app that records your voice, transcribes it, and emails you the note.

Strategic Thinking & Decision Making

Once you have a goal, start breaking it down into projects that will make that goal happen.

Divide your goals into short-term and long-term, then rate on a scale of 1-5.

Basing decisions on a gut reaction is easier than thinking through an issue; however, an educated guess is a far better option.

There is bias in decision-making, and we often find excuses for doing what we want to do because we can rationalize it.

Once you have the goals, then break down the individual tasks and rate them on a scale too.

For every task you have, double the amount of time in the project plan and build it into the system to alleviate project stress.

A lot of people look at other businesses and see the outcome but aren’t able to see the path to that outcome, so it’s easy to assume that it was easy.

There is a lot of work you don’t see others do and only see the end result.

Calendar Management

Divide your to-do list by project.

Allow for time to follow-up on emails and catching up on phone calls.

Block in ‘quiet time’ for strategic thinking and big level projects.

Every week, look at your to-do list and move the items to your calendar so you know what your week looks like.

Consider scheduling time blocks to do email rather than continually checking.

Time and calendar management is based on your habits.

Our brains are wired in way that we want to feel that we have mastery.

Procrastination

A resistance quotient is what you are avoiding.

We are motivated by two things 1) to get pleasure, 2) to get away from pain.

Some people get high on the last minute racing-the-clock adrenaline. For those people, the question is, ‘how can we replace that with a healthier attitude?’

In a group situation, there is a concept called ‘social loafing,’ which is the group mentality that someone else is going to do it.

People want to do the least they have to for the most reward, so the question is, ‘how to get social loafers to step up?’

People need to feel the effects of procrastination rather than others stepping in to save them.

Delegation

Some people think delegation is lazy, and others look at it as being smart.

You can get more time by spending money and getting someone to do the things you think you have to do.

Business owners will often say they can do tasks faster and easier themselves. However, every time this is done, time is taken away from crucial CEO tasks.

Look at all the tasks you are doing and admit that maybe you aren’t the best person to do it.

Surround yourself with people who know more than you do about their area of expertise, as this will leverage your time and build your business.

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